Did you take part in the RSPB Big Garden Bird Watch over the weekend? We did and I’d said last week I’d let you know what we saw for this annual wildlife survey. Though as expected, there were no unusual sightings for us, just our normal jackdaws.

Our first attempt at the Big Garden Bird Watch was cut short after being hijacked by a black and white cat! It sneaked into the yard and suddenly appeared on the window ledge! What?! I can’t record a feline fiend for the Big Garden Bird Watch!

Fortunately our second attempt followed a rather more normal pattern. The bird food is put out. The boisterous jackdaws descend from their rooftop hangouts. We frantically count them as they swoop and jostle each other for a position on the wall where the food is waiting.
“One, two, three, four, five, six,” we chorus as the jackdaws land in turn.
“Did you get the one on the roof?”
“No, just the two on the fence.”
“There was the one on the post too.”
“There’s one on the tree – well, it’s on the window ledge now actually.”

When most of the pastry and cheese shreds have been devoured, the black cloud lifts. Individual birds then return from time to time to seek out any leftovers. The porridge oats and fruit are less popular with the jackdaws. Sometimes we see blackbirds, house sparrows and dunnocks, so we try and cater for all tastes. But none of the others put in an appearance during our Big Garden Bird Watch hour this year.

Today I added our survey tally to the RSPB’s results web page. I don’t mind that we usually only end up recording jackdaws for the Big Garden Bird Watch because we see so many other wild birds nearby to us every day.

Do you live in the UK? Can you spare an hour to watch the birds in your garden next weekend? 24-25 Jan 2015 is the RSPB Big Garden Bird Watch.

The annual Big Garden Bird Watch is the world’s largest wildlife survey, organised by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds here in the UK. The survey provides a really useful snapshot of the birds we are currently seeing in our gardens. Now in its 36th year, the data from the Big Garden Bird Watch builds up with all of our results each year. Hundreds of thousands of us across the country will spend an hour of our choice over the weekend watching the birds in our gardens. Around half a million of us counted 7 million birds last year! It is so easy to take part, many of us drink tea and eat biscuits at the same time 🙂

To do the survey, all we need to do is record how many of each bird species we see in the garden at any one time. You can record the birds you see directly onto the RSPB website.

Most of us will see our common UK garden birds – but if you aren’t too sure about identifying the birds you see, there’s help at hand on the RSPB website. Here on the What to look out for page you’ll see the birds that most often visit gardens, along with information on the kind of food they prefer and whether they’re the acrobatic type that hang on bird feeders or if they’re more likely to be seen down on the ground. There’s also the Bird Guide that can help you out with any less-common species.

Bird populations are a good indicator of wider wildlife health in our countryside, so as a keen nature watcher I always like to take part in this survey. If you can spare an hour this weekend to help find out how our feathered friends and other wildlife are faring, please visit the RSPB’s website here and register to take part.

Our 10 jackdaws were the only entrants from us for last year’s Big Garden Bird Watch. After we’ve done our survey this weekend I’ll let you know which birds we see this time. If you do take part in the survey, it would be good to see your results too.

A talented London street artist, ATM, is showing his support for some of the UK’s vanishing wildlife in a direct but novel way. His wonderful paintings of birds are appearing in some seemingly unlikely locations in London. This video by About Wonnish Films shows him painting a bittern – now a very rare marshland bird – in an alleyway in Bethnal Green. The urban jungle may have taken over here, but close by on the Hackney Marshes bitterns would have been found in the past.

I really enjoyed the film showing the painting process and the painting itself is amazing. I first read about ATM’s urban bird paintings in a Guardian article today.

You can see some photographs of the rare and secretive bittern on the RSPB’s website and hear a recording of its very unusual booming call too. The RSPB has done some sterling work in seeking to revive the bittern’s fortunes in the UK by careful management of the bird’s reedbed habitat on some of their reserves but the bittern remains one of the UK’s most endangered birds.

I certainly applaud ATM’s creative way of bringing our UK endangered birds to the attention of a new urban audience.

I have taken the theme of “nature” as the thread that binds this post together, but there are several strands.

Today is Day 1 of the RSPB’s Big Garden Birdwatch weekend. I posted earlier in the week about this – and there’s still time for you to take part in the biggest wildlife survey in the world if you can find an hour to spare on Sunday.

This morning we counted ‘our’ birds … 10 jackdaws. To us they really are ‘our birds’ as they were born and raised in the old chimneys of our house.

It’s a pity ‘our’ starlings didn’t put in an appearance today, as seemingly unbelievably, starlings are becoming less common than you might think. Perhaps because it was not too cold, they were evidently visiting further flung pastures today. The starlings live in our flat-roof, above our youngest son’s bedroom. They nest there and hide out there too when it’s really cold. I did hear one of them talking on the chimney earlier in the week.

As this afternoon turned wet and squally, it seemed a good time to browse other blogs to see how nature was faring elsewhere. As a self-confessed nature nut, I must say how heartened I was to see just how many other fellow bloggers care about our natural world.

It was wonderful to see Suzy Blue’s flowering snowdrops on her Country Diary blog. Seeing snowdrops always makes me feel Spring is not too far around the corner. We have some snowdrops that grow right outside of our front door – but no sign of flowers for us just yet on our windswept northern hillside.

We live surrounded by wonderful woods. I love trees – from tiny sprouting acorns to gnarled and ancient beauties. I was fascinated today when I learned about an amazing old Irish hedgerow in a post called “Bright Skies and Dark Hedges” on Littlest Allsorts.

I am always intrigued by the ways we as humans have shaped our ‘natural’ landscapes. This avenue of veritable ‘old ladies’ can be seen along a roadside near Ballymoney, Co. Antrim. If you take a peek at it you will not be surprised to hear it is not unaccustomed to photographic attention having been chosen as a film location on several occasions, including for the popular ‘Game of Thrones’.

To weave the final strand into this Nature Round-up, I want to share with you a poem I discovered today, “A Natural Curriculum” on the blog ‘wordsthatserve’. It describes to us an “alternative 3 ‘R’s”.

I really liked this poem, especially as its first verse touched on one of my own ‘pet’ subjects, litter. For me those three concepts, Respect, Resilience and Reciprocity, as represented in this poem, should act as way-markers for human-kind as we negotiate our place on this planet.

If you’re a UK-based nature watcher like me you’re probably also getting organised for the RSPB’s annual Big Garden Bird Watch this weekend, 25/26 January 2014. This is the world’s largest wildlife survey!

We’ve taken part in this national annual spot check on the health (or otherwise) of our garden bird populations for a quite a few years now. I found it was a great way to introduce our boys to birdwatching when they were still very young.

In those days everything still came by post. So there would always be a build-up to this event when the Big Garden Bird Watch information arrived, which included a handy A4 bird ID poster. For years for our younger children we had an ‘original’ 2003 bird ID poster stuck at child height on the kitchen wall.

Nowadays everything is online and taking part is really easy whether you’re ‘just’ an adult or if you’re making it a family activity. Anyone can take part. As the RSPB explains:

“Watch the birds in your garden or local green space for one hour during the Birdwatch weekend. Record the highest number of species you see at any one time, rather than totalling them up over the hour, as you may record the same bird twice.”

… yes, if you don’t have a garden, you can do your bird watch in any nearby green space.

This year you can even record your sightings on your laptop, tablet or smartphone using the new timer facility. We will probably stick with pencil and paper as usual and then submit our results online afterwards. The results need to be submitted by 16 February 2014.

Because this survey is so big … an amazing 590,000 people took part and counted over 8 million birds last year … the data from it really is useful. Bird populations are a good indicator of wider wildlife health in our countryside.

All the information about the Big Garden Birdwatch is on the RSPB website so if you’re in the UK why not try and spare an hour over this weekend to take part?

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